The Van Gogh Deception

by Deron R. Hicks

  “Taylor?” asked Detective Neil Wasberger. “Your brother’s name is Taylor, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Taylor Patrick Howell. He’s twelve years old, the youngest kid in our family. He lives in Winchester, Virginia, with my mom, my dad, and my middle brother.”

  “And you are David Howell?” Detective Wasberger furiously scribbled notes on his small notepad. Wasberger was a huge man—​as wide as he was tall, and he was very tall. He stared down from his seat at the small, thin young man sitting in front of him. He had briefly considered calling Detective Evans to let her know that someone had shown up to claim the boy—​to see if she wanted to come in and conduct the interview. But he had ultimately decided against it. It wasn’t as if he were interrogating a criminal mastermind or something.

  “Yes, sir,” replied the young man. “My dad’s out of the country on business, and Mom is real upset—​especially since it’s getting near Christmas. I told her I would come get him.”

  “And the name in the jacket?” The detective glanced at his notes. “It was Arthur, not Taylor.”

  David Howell laughed. “That’s my middle brother—​Arthur. With three boys, everything gets passed down. Sorta surprised he didn’t have one with my name in it.”

  The detective nodded and made a notation in the file. The explanation made sense.

  The young man leaned across the desk and handed a Virginia driver’s license to the detective. “Here’s my ID,” he said. “Just in case you need to see it.”

  The detective looked at the license and handed it back. He then gave the young man a pen and pad of paper.

  “I need your contact information,” said the detective. “Address, home phone number, cell phone.”

  The young man jotted down the information and handed the pad back. The detective noticed a small tattoo on the inside of David’s wrist. The young man caught Detective Wasberger staring at the tattoo and held up his wrist for the detective to see better. The tattoo was an image of a fleur-de-lis.

  “Fraternity symbol,” the young man said. “Kinda stupid, I suppose, but all the guys got one. My mom said it was trashy-looking.”

  “Listen to your mom,” the detective said with a smile as he pulled back his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Mickey Mouse riding a motorcycle on his forearm.

  The young man laughed.

  The detective glanced down at his notes. “I don’t suppose you have any photos—”

  “Of Taylor?” the young man interrupted. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry—​I should have given you this earlier.” He handed over a photo of the boy standing in front of the Washington Monument, next to a tall man with blond hair.

  “That’s my dad,” David said. “He’s a lawyer.”

  The detective placed the photo next to the photograph in the file. It matched perfectly. The boy was a mini version of his father, even if he didn’t look a thing like his older brother. The mystery had been solved. Case closed. Detective Wasberger handed the photo back.

  “Like I said, Mom’s real embarrassed,” said the young man.

  “Tell your mom not to worry,” replied the detective. “It happens more than you think.”

  The young man breathed a sigh of relief. “So it’s okay if I go pick him up?” he asked. “I’d like to try to get him home before it gets dark. Mom’s mad at him, but she’s also worried sick.”

  “We can make that happen,” said the detective. “I just need to get some paperwork filled out, put in a call to social services, and then set up a time for . . .”

  David slumped back in his seat. The disappointment was evident on his face.

  The detective paused. He knew that it would take forever to get in touch with social services and fill out all the necessary paperwork. And besides, he had robberies, homicides, and other real crimes to investigate. There was no sense in making this harder than it had to be.

  The detective wrote down a name, address, and phone number on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk. “Your brother’s in temporary foster care,” he said. “That’s the contact information for the foster parent. I’ll give her a call and let her know you’ll be picking up your brother.”

  The young man reached across the table, grabbed the detective’s hand, and shook it vigorously. “I can’t tell you how much this means to my family,” he said. The detective could hear the emotion in the young man’s voice.

  “Just doing my job,” replied Detective Wasberger.

  “If you don’t mind,” David said, “do you know where in the museum my brother was found?”

  The detective glanced down at his file. “According to the security report from the National Gallery, he was found in Gallery 83 on the main floor of the West Building. Doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. Went through the museum once when I was on a high school field trip—​never been back.”

  The young man shrugged. “Yeah,” he replied, “guess it doesn’t really matter.”

  The detective closed the file. “Do you want me to go with you to pick him up?” he asked. “You know, to put a scare in him for running away and lying about it?”

  “Don’t worry,” David said. “I’ll put a scare in him he’ll never forget.”

  Dorchek Palmer made his way out of the police station. It was cold, and the day seemed to be turning colder by the minute. There was a security camera directly above the entrance to the station and a camera on each corner of the building. Palmer kept his cap pulled down low and tilted his head ever so slightly away from each camera he passed. He pulled out his phone and dialed it with his left hand. Palmer was right-handed, and it felt awkward using his left hand—​but he knew that every detail mattered. Everything he did had to lead in a different direction—​to a different person.

  “Five minutes,” he said into the phone before ending the call.

  He then bent over and carefully tied his shoes—​bright red Chuck Taylors. He positioned himself so that the cameras could get a good view of his feet.

  Palmer checked his watch—​a thick black sports watch. It was time to go.

  He headed west until he ran into Sixth Street. He took a right and headed north. A minute later a black SUV pulled alongside him. He opened the rear passenger-side door and quickly got in. A black trash bag sat on the seat beside him. He removed his hat, jacket, glasses, watch, and shoes and placed them into the bag. He pulled on a pair of well-worn leather loafers, a black wool jacket, black leather gloves, and a burnt orange skullcap.

  “Wipe,” Palmer said.

  The man sitting in the front passenger seat tore open a small foil package and handed a wet wipe to Palmer. He cleaned the temporary tattoo off the inside of his wrist and dropped the dirty wipe into the trash bag. He then tied up the bag and handed it to the man in the front seat.

  On the floorboard of the car was a black shoulder bag. Palmer retrieved an iPad from the bag and started punching in the information provided by the detective. Within minutes he had pictures of Mary Sullivan and her daughter and the address of their house sent to his team. A moment later he had retrieved her vehicle information and distributed that as well. He then pulled up the website for the National Gallery of Art and located an interactive map of the West Building. He located Gallery 83—​the gallery in which the boy had been found. Below the image of the map of the main floor—​Gallery 83 highlighted in deep blue—​were images of the significant works of art that could be found in that particular gallery.

  Uh oh, Palmer thought.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Palmer put the iPad away and stared out the window. The car turned down Seventeenth Street and moments later stopped in front of the World War II Memorial. Palmer grabbed the shoulder bag and exited the car, which immediately sped off. He started walking swiftly toward the Lincoln Memorial.

  It had been only ten minutes since he had left the police station, but time was already running short.

  Chapter 9

  3:15 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16


  Archives Metro station, Washington, DC

  Art, Mary, and Camille exited the escalator from the Metro station into a large plaza. A bitterly cold day greeted them—​the temperature seemed to have dropped at least ten degrees in just the past half hour. In the middle of the plaza were two wide fountains. A freezing mist from the cascades blew across their faces. Small patches of dirty snow and ice hung tenaciously to the edges of the black stone that ringed each fountain. It seemed crazy to the boy that the fountainheads would be operating in this weather.

  On the sidewalk, a man sat on a crate playing a trumpet with one hand, his other hand tucked deep into the pocket of his thick winter coat. A small bucket for tips sat in front of him. The music seemed familiar to Art—​slow and jazzy—​but he couldn’t remember the name of the song. The notes lingered in the cold air. Mary dropped a dollar into the bucket. The man paused ever so briefly to say thank you, then resumed playing.

  Art looked up. Dark clouds hovered low in the sky, lending a dull gray color to everything he could see.

  The boy and Camille followed Mary into the plaza and directly between the two fountains. A couple of tourists milled about, but the plaza was surprisingly empty and quiet.

  “This is the Navy Memorial,” said Camille. She pointed to a statue of a sailor on the far side of the plaza. “Pretty cool, huh? I call him Joe.”

  Art barely nodded. It was too cold for sightseeing.

  Camille then turned and pointed to the massive stone building behind them. Engraved in stone—​just above the center row of columns—​were the words ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

  “That’s the National Archives,” she said. “They keep the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in there—​the original ones, not copies. I bet it’s full of all sorts of secret stuff. Mom said they even have stuff about UFOs.”

  Mary laughed. “That’s true,” she said. “I think Camille is planning to be a tour guide when she grows up. She knows all the little secrets about Washington, DC.”

  And she likes to talk, thought the boy.

  “Well, as much as I enjoy Camille’s travelogues,” said Mary, “I think we need to get to the museum before our noses freeze off. Everybody wrapped up, tight and warm?”

  “Toasty,” Camille replied cheerfully.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Art said as he moved quickly alongside Camille and her mother. They headed across the road and over to Seventh Street.

  They turned down the avenue and into the full brunt of the cold December wind. The boy swore as he fell in behind Camille and her mother that his eyeballs were going to freeze. He pulled his knit cap down low on his head and squinted his eyes until he could barely make out Mary and Camille in front of him. Camille said something about how cold it had turned, but most of her words were lost in the wind. The boy just mumbled something and kept on walking.

  After what felt like an eternity, Mary announced that they had arrived. Directly across the street was the National Gallery of Art—​four stories high and spread across an entire city block. Long banners hung between the massive stone columns on the front of the building. The banners popped with color—​brilliant greens, blues, and yellows. The image spread across the banners was a painting of a garden. The brush strokes in the print—​blown up a hundred times or more their regular size—​were enormous, bold ribbons of color. Across the top of the middle banner were the words “Lost Art: van Gogh Rediscovered.”

  The boy stared at the banners. They were beautiful.

  “We’re going to go see it,” said Camille. “In February. We already have tickets.”

  “See it? See what?”

  The girl pointed at the banners. “You don’t know?” she asked incredulously. “It’s a new painting by van Gogh.”

  “Not a new painting,” corrected her mother. “A newly rediscovered painting. Everyone thought it was destroyed during World War II, but it was recently found in a bank vault in Germany along with a lot of other paintings. It’s quite an exciting story.”

  “Well, it’s a new painting to me,” said Camille.

  Mary ignored her daughter. “Anyway,” she continued, “the National Gallery is purchasing the painting, and an exhibition has already been scheduled to begin in February. The crowds are going to be huge.”

  “One hundred and eighty-three million dollars!” exclaimed Camille. “They are paying one hundred and eighty-three million dollars for that painting. Can you imagine? I just have to see what a one-hundred-and-eighty-three-million-dollar painting looks like.”

  “What’s the painting called?” asked the boy.

  “The Park at Arles with the Entrance Seen Through the Trees,” replied Mary. “Ever heard of it?”

  The boy paused.

  “I don’t think so,” he finally said. The truth, however, was somewhat more complicated. He remembered the way Mary had reacted when he recognized the painting on Camille’s mug of hot chocolate that morning. It was as though she was waiting for him to freak out and run out of the room screaming. He didn’t want to do that to her again. And yet, the truth was, he knew all about Arles—​the small city in southern France, not the painting on the banners. And he also knew all about Vincent van Gogh—​the brilliant and troubled Dutch painter. In fact, as soon as the boy had seen the words “van Gogh” on the banner, it was as if a faucet had been turned on in his head. The amount of information that had started gushing through his brain scared him. He knew that van Gogh was Dutch, that he had struggled as an artist, that during his lifetime he had sold only one painting, and that he had died penniless. But he also knew that van Gogh’s paintings—​raw, emotional, and filled with color—​were brilliant beyond words. He knew that Vincent van Gogh had once lived in Arles and had produced some of his most magnificent works there—​paintings bursting with color and energy. Van Gogh fed on the energy of the city, and it transformed how he saw the world around him—​a simple still life of oranges became a dazzling display of dark blues, deep greens, and bright yellows. He knew that van Gogh had cut off his ear in Arles after an argument with another famous painter, Paul Gauguin. And he knew that van Gogh, whose life had ended far too young by his own hand, had almost died in that city.

  But it was more than just trivia rushing through his brain. The boy was also positive that he had been to Arles. He could see the narrow stone streets, the red tile roofs, and the boats moored along the Rhône River. He knew there was a small café in Arles on the Place du Forum—​the exact same café that van Gogh had painted so long ago. It was one of the boy’s favorite paintings by van Gogh—​the café brightly lit at night against a star-filled sky. The café and the surrounding street had changed little since van Gogh once lived in the city. Art could remember sitting in that café, sipping a Coke and realizing that Vincent van Gogh—​one of the greatest artists in history—​may have once sat in that same spot and looked out at the same street. The boy remembered the chill going down his spine at that thought.

  And there was something else about Arles—​a little itch at the back of Art’s brain. He couldn’t see it or name it, but the boy knew the detail, the story, whatever it was, was sitting there somewhere, waiting to be discovered. And that worried him.

  3:16 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16

  First District Station, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC

  Detective Neil Wasberger made a notation in the file that he had tried to call Mary Sullivan but had been forced to leave a message on her home phone.

  She’ll call back soon enough, he thought.

  He was picking up the phone to contact social services when his somewhat sizable stomach growled rudely at him. He smoothed the front of his shirt, which was stretched tight across his belly, and thanked his lucky stars that he didn’t have to wear a tie on the job—​it was just one more thing that would grow a little tight around his build as time wore on.

  Detective Wasberger checked his watch. It was well past his usual luncht
ime—​and the detective was not a man accustomed to missing lunch, or any meal, for that matter. His usual breakfast of pancakes, eggs, biscuits, bacon, and coffee barely sustained him through the morning on a normal day. He put the phone back down. He could call social services after a late lunch.

  After all, what was the worst that could happen?

  3:19 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16

  Sullivan residence, Washington, DC

  The dingy gray delivery van pulled up in front of the narrow white-brick home near Dupont Circle. EDISON STREET COURIER SERVICE read the sign on the side of the van. A young lady wearing a dark blue jump suit and carrying a cardboard tube exited the van and made her way quickly to the front door. She rang the doorbell and waited a moment.

  No answer.

  She knocked twice on the door and waited another moment.

  No answer.

  She pulled out her phone and punched in a number. A moment later she could hear the phone inside the house start to ring. After five rings the answering machine picked up.

  The house was empty.

  The young lady returned to the van and, within seconds, pulled away from the curb. She made a right-hand turn down a narrow alley, which ran down the middle of the block behind the white-brick home. A short, thin man was waiting for her at the rear of the home. He climbed in the passenger side of the van.

  “No one’s home,” said the young lady.

  “Seems that way,” said the man. “But her SUV is parked in back. They didn’t go far.” He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text message: “No one home, but car still here. What’s next?”

  The response was almost instantaneous: “Wait for my instructions.”